we know each other as we always were
by ohmytheon
Summary: Living in the palace is strange enough for May, but even stranger with the new Emperor and a homunculus trying to act like an actual big brother. (Greed Lives AU)


**Author's Notes:** Because there's complaining about wanting something and then there's doing something that can get the ball rolling and inspiring other people to join me. (I'm desperate, if you can't tell.) Also, I could NOT get the idea of Greed trying to be the BEST BIG BROTHER EVER out of my head. That's HIS little sister, after all. So yeah, AU where Greed Lives and the world is a better place for it.

 **Disclaimer:** I don't own jack.

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 **we know each other as we always were**

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Life would've been strange in the palace no matter what. There was only one reason she had ever gone to the palace before: to celebrate name days, be it the Emperor's, hers, or her siblings. She didn't go to all of her siblings' name day celebrations, as she had the furthest to travel and sometimes it couldn't be afforded, but she had tried to do so, even if it meant traveling with only one other person. She could defend herself, but it would've looked bad if a princess went to the capital without an escort, even a princess as poor as her. Her empty seat in court on those days were noted and not in her favor.

A prince from the Yao clan could afford to go to all of them. He even had bodyguards, something that had amazed her when she had noticed them. A prince with people destined to protect him! She thought only the Emperor could afford that. All she had were her uncles, but they weren't really bodyguards, only old men with a bit of training. It wasn't until years later that she realized that she was the only princess to not have a single designated bodyguard, but by then, she was already learning how to take care of herself.

She had too many siblings for all of them to really matter while she grew up and the Yao prince had been relatively quiet, a nonexistent blip on her radar. Since the Emperor was so old, some of her siblings were fully grown by the time she was born. Ling was the closest to her in age, but he was still older than her and she was too shy to talk to most of her siblings, especially since they looked down on her for coming from the Chang clan. The first time she had met him had been at the banquet table, which had been completely covered in food for the Emperor's birthday, when she was five. She had been so awed that she could barely pick anything to eat while Ling had been shoveling everything his eyes landed on into his mouth.

 _"Have you seen this much food before?"_ May had shyly asked.

Ling, his mouth full of the stuff, had painfully swallowed and nodded his head, looking confused. _"All the time. I'm a growing boy, so I need a lot of food."_ He had said it like it was so obvious that she had been shocked. _"Don't you have food where you're from?"_

And then she had been angry. Of course had food where she lived, but not this much! She turned red in the face and stomped away, so full of anger that she hadn't been able to think straight. And then, when no one was looking, pulled some sort of sticky rice bun out of her sleeve and moved it between her hands. She picked at her nice clothes, noting how they hung on her, but everyone said that she would grow into them. She was just small. It wasn't because of how little food her Clan had. They had food. She wasn't poor. She was a princess of Xing.

That memory had stained Ling in her eyes for years. She had seen him on many other occasions, but the two of them did not speak, merely learning of each other through their actions and behavior at the palace. You couldn't do anything there without someone finding out. There were so many little spies, everyone trying to gain dirt on another so that they could gain the Emperor's favor or cause him to feel disdain towards another. It was a dirty game, one that turned violent many times. One of the clans no longer had a potential heir, as he had been killed, and another was crippled, no longer in the running for the throne.

She had witnessed people die to protect princes and princesses, but no one attacked her. She was only of the Chang clan. They gave her disparaging smiles and pat her on the head instead of threatening her life.

So yes, being in the palace now, so many years later, and more than for just a two weeks of the year, was strange. May tiptoed around the place like there might be a strategically placed murderer around every corner, but nothing ever happened. She warily picked at her food, thinking it might be poisoned, but she never got sick. She slept in the coziest bed she had ever laid in, wondering if the sheets might attempt to strangle her the moment she fell asleep. One would think that she would feel relaxed in such a luxurious place or relieved that all the drama and scariness was over in Armestris, but they would be wrong. If anything, she felt uncomfortable, like she didn't belong.

But Ling insisted that she stay. He insisted that she belonged here. She was the only one who could possibly understand the struggle he had gone through. None of their other siblings had made their trek across the desert to seek out the Philosopher's Stone. No one else had tried to fight a being who sought to become stronger than god. They didn't know about chimeras or alchemists or homunculus. None of them had taken their responsibilities as heirs to the throne and to protect their clans as seriously as they had. Ling had been willing to give his body away and May had been willing to die alone.

No one understood loss as well as them.

Unless you counted Greed, who still cheekily occupied Ling's body, which made things all the more stranger.

Whenever Ling was ruling and acting as Emperor once their father passed, he allowed Ling full control, choosing to languish as Ling did all the work, but he liked to pop up very now and then when she least expected it. Lan Fan would gasp and then fume in disapproval, but May thought Ling rather enjoyed it. The two of them were able to blend together seamlessly, sometimes to the point when she couldn't tell who was who. They both enjoyed that. Greed was more comfortable around humans than the other homunculus had been, enjoying them in his own strange way even. It might not be the world, but he had Xing, which seemed to be enough for him.

At least, she thought it would be enough. There were no murderers or sneaks trying to pounce her in the night, though she was certain that one of her siblings who were jealous of her newfound favoritism might try something soon, but it didn't matter because there was Greed. Or maybe it was Ling. Just when she thought she was totally alone, he would spring on her like a weed. He was always so nosy about what she was doing. Not that either he or Ling thought she was trying to undermine him in any way - he was the Emperor now and she would follow his lead - but he acted genuinely curious.

 _"What are you doing today?" "Have you received a letter from Alphonse?" "Did Edward say anything?" "Have you written back to Alphonse?" "What do you think about Alphonse anyways?" "Do you think Lan Fan will like this dress?" "Do you think Lan Fan will try to hurt me if I give her this necklace?" "Are you hungry?"_

So many questions. It was never-ending. One time, unable to stop herself, she had asked why it mattered so much to him. It had never mattered before. Not that she didn't appreciate all that he had done for her and her clan, but she didn't understand.

Ling had blinked, looking once more genuinely confused, and said, _"Because you're my sister."_ So it was Ling then.

Well, she had been his sister for many years before and he had never cared about her then. He had looked on her with the same disdain as some of their other siblings from more wealthier clans before. Of course, he apologized and told her that he regretted being so narrow-minded, but that didn't stop her from looking at him oddly. She could still see him as he was before he had absorbed the homunculus, so full of himself and sure of his status. Perhaps he was still that way now, but it was different. He was caring as well. He used his status to help others.

And then, on a day like any other, when she was trying to read in the garden, her favorite spot in the palace and the one place that Greed and Ling had deemed her place to be left alone, she was attacked. Maybe she had become too comfortable in her day-to-day life in the palace or maybe she had reverted back to the time when no one seemed to give her the time of day and she hadn't had to worry about being killed, but she was slow on the uptake. Only using the book to shield herself had stopped a dagger from entering her heart, but then she slipped on a wet rock and staggered backwards, allowing a knife to slash against her arm.

Crying out in pain, she stumbled, using the momentum of her fall to launch herself with her good arm onto her feet. Blood dripped from the wound onto stone. She took in two attackers in front of her, but was able to use the Dragon Pulse to sense another coming at her from behind. She twisted out of his reach at just the right moment and leaped, kicking down and knocking the attacker hard onto the ground. She stepped on him, smacking his face into the stone, and jumped to meet the other two head on. She had trained for years in fighting, fought undead monsters, twisted chimeras, and more. She could handle men. But then, unexpectedly, a hand from a fourth person hit her from behind in just the right spot, alkhestry shooting through her, and she was thrown against a tree, the wind knocked out of her.

Someone pulled her head back by her hair, causing her to gasp in pain, and pressed a sharp knife against her neck as they hissed, "The Zhang clan sends their regards, princess."

" _What do you think you're doing to_ _ **my sister**_?" a voice bellowed in the air, practically shaking the leaves of the plants in the garden. She knew that voice, deeper than normal, outraged beyond belief yet also strangely possessive. My sister. It sounded different somehow this time.

The person let go of her, causing her to fall back against the tree and hug it to keep herself standing. When she looked back, she saw Ling standing on the bench she had been sitting on, looking properly terrifying and powerful as the Emperor should when angered. The sleeves of his extravagant robes had fallen back to reveal coal-dark skin as he clenched his fists. No, not skin - it was the Ultimate Shield, a gift of the homonculus' power. It wasn't Ling; it was Greed.

No amount of groveling could soothe his rage, so the attackers did the only thing they could do. They raced to strike him down. Escape was not possible, not with the guards closing in on them. Lan Fan appeared to the side, ready to fight, but it wasn't necessary. Covered up to his neck with the Ultimate Shield and powered by his fury, Greed struck the three conscious attempted assassins down with ease. His sharp claws sliced through them like chicken, their blood splashing against the plants that would need to be delicately washed later. He tore through them with efficiency, but it was hot with his temper.

The last assassin, the one that had held her, collapsed to the ground, holding a hand against their bleeding chest, and gasped in horror as Greed descended upon them, picking them up with one hand by their throat and holding them in the air. "I will let you live long enough so that you can send a message throughout Xing to the other clans," Greed told the assassin hotly. "No one is to harm May Chang. _No one._ She is _my_ sister and _mine_ to protect. No one is to attack my other siblings either. They are free to live without fear from me or others. But anyone that attempts to hurt May will suffer the most severe consequences. The Zhang clan will be the first example."

When he dropped the attacker, they crumpled to the ground and let the guards take them without a fight. Lan Fan stood warily to the side, but kept her distance and stayed silent as Greed walked towards May and helped her to her feet. May found herself feeling shaky and light-headed, like her knees might buckle at any moment, so she allowed him to guide her back towards the bench and set her down. His hands were their normal selves again, pale and soft from having not worked in fields or done hard labor as she had done while growing up, but he had distinct callouses from practicing years with his swords.

"You didn't have to do all that," May said quietly, as if she couldn't trust her own voice. She stared at her feet, avoiding the blood around them.

"Yes, I did," he told her, and she saw upon glancing up at him that it was Ling again. She thought, however, that she could see a glimmer of Greed in his eyes. He smiled at her, bent down to her level, and ruffled her hair, like he had done in Armestris when he'd first promised to protect her clan. "I'm your big brother. What kind of brother would I be if I didn't protect my little sister?"

Despite herself, tears began to pool in her eyes. "Your little sister." She could not remember anyone caring about her so selflessly before - and yet so selfishly at the same time. She was certain that her uncles and her mother loved her, but a part of them had always only seen her as a potential heir to the throne, their ticket out of poverty. Here, now, Ling and even Greed only saw her as their sister, their family, and that was why she was to be cared for.

"It is my duty as Emperor to protect my people," Ling told her, "but it is my duty as a brother to see to it that you are safe. I didn't truly know to care about anyone else before I travelled to Armestris, but I didn't know what family was until I returned to Xing." He pulled her into a quick hug the moment the tears started to spill onto her cheeks, not caring that her blood smeared against his good robes. "Now come, let's get you to the palace healer."

"I can do it myself," May insisted, her voice muffled against his chest, but she didn't move and she didn't stop hugging him.

"I know," Ling chuckled. Or was it Greed again? She thought it was both of them. "But you don't have to do everything on your own now, not anymore. Come."

She let herself be taken to the healer by Ling, Greed's possessive hand on her shoulder daring anyone to make another attempt, and for the first time in what felt like forever, she allowed herself to be taken care of instead of doing it herself. It felt strange, having someone care for her so much, but nice too. Very nice.


End file.
